Moodle 2 for Teaching 4-9 Year Olds: Use Moodle to create quizzes, puzzles, and games to enhance the learning ability of your students

333 Pages·2011·33.07 MB·English

by  Nicholas Freear

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Moodle 2 for Teaching
4-9 Year Olds
Beginner's Guide
Use Moodle to create quizzes, puzzles, and games to
enhance the learning ability of your students
Nicholas Freear
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
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Moodle 2 for Teaching 4-9 Year Olds
Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
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publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without
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and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly
or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the
companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals.
However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
First published: October 2011
Production Reference: 1121011
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84951-328-9
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Rakesh Shejwal ([email protected])
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Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Nicholas Freear Michelle Quadros
Proofreaders
Reviewers
Aaron Nash
Mary Cooch
Steve Maguire
Silvina P. Hillar
Maja Kuna
Indexer
Kent Villard
Monica Ajmera Mehta
Acquisition Editor
Graphics
Sarah Cullington
Geetanjali Sawant
Development Editor
Production Coordinator
Chris Rodrigues
Alwin Roy
Technical Editors
Cover Work
Pallavi Kachare
Alwin Roy
Arun Nadar
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About the Author
Nicholas Freear got into software and educational technology through a series of
happy accidents. During research for a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University
of Birmingham he was thrown in at the deep end, learning to program in C++, using the
Windows API, and programming against the interface card for an early digital camera
(a "frame grabber", since you ask).
Bizarrely, this didn't put him off. In his next job, he was a programmer at a high-tech startup
company helping to create products from voice recognition and speech synthesis software.
However, the World Wide Web was calling. After a character-building stint as a
self-employed developer and accessibility consultant, Nicholas joined the team that
was working on The Open University's next-generation e-learning environment. And so,
he was introduced to Moodle and the open-source software community. Following several
fruitful years, Nick joined the Institute of Educational Technology at The OU, where he got
to talk to more academics, pursue his accessibility and usability interests, and work on many
different education and research projects.
He blogs (http://freear.org.uk), contributes to the Moodle community
(http://moodle.org/user/view.php?id=93815), and likes to talk at workshops
and conferences despite his stammer.
When he's not trying to understand the mysteries of the Web, Nick likes to sing, cycle, listen
to loud music, and learn about all things Chinese. Occasionally all at the same time.
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Acknowledgement
I am indebted to many people for their help during this project.
To Snehman Kohli and Sarah Cullington at Packt Publishing for coming to me with the original
ideas—it's been a crazy ride!
To my coordinator, editors, and reviewers: Michelle Quadros, Sarah, Chris Rodrigues, Reshma
Sundaresan,Swapna Verlekar, Arun Nadar, Pallavi Kachare, Maja Kuna, Silvina P. Hillar, Kent
Villard, Rebecca Galley, and Mary Cooch – for outstanding patience.
To the Moodle community, particularly the contributed plugins curator, Anthony Borrow,
Michael de Raadt, Mary Cooch, and those on the Quiz forum—for encouragement and
valuable feedback on my contributed plugins.
The VLE team in Learning and Teaching Solutions at The Open University—for stimulating
and nurturing my interest in free/open source software and Moodle. You guys and gals
continue to do a fantastic and sometimes under-rated job.
Colleagues at the Institute of Educational Technology and around The Open University—for
support, friendship, and putting interesting projects my way. This includes Will, Juliette,
Chetz, Rod, and the Richards.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my parents David and Doreen for their support, and firing my
interest in books.
Lastly, to the free/open source software and open-content communities: "If I have seen
further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants"
— (Isaac Newton)
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About the Reviewers
Silvina P. Hillar has been teaching English since 1993. She has always had a great
interest in teaching, writing, and composing techniques, and has made a lot of research
on this subject.
She is an English Teacher, a Certified Legal Translator (English/Spanish), and has a Post
Degree in Education (graduated with Honors).
She has been working in several schools and institutes with native English-speaking students
and as an independent consultant for many international companies as an interpreter,
translator, and e-learning activities developer.
She has always had a passion for technological devices concerning education. Former
videos and cassettes were a must in her teaching lessons; computer was and still is
present. Her brother Gastón C. Hillar designed some programs and games for her teaching.
Lately, she is teaching using Moodle and the Web 2.0. She believes that one of the
most amazing challenges in education is bridging the gap between classic education
and modern technologies.
She has been doing a lot of research on multimedia assets which enhance the teaching and
learning through VLE platforms. She tries to embed the learning of students through new
resources which are appealing and innovative for them. Thus, multimedia stimulates the
different thinking skills as well as multiple intelligences.
She has worked on books such as Moodle 1.9 English Teacher's Cookbook and Moodle 2.0
Multimedia Cookbook.
I would like to thank all the team at Packt Publishing Ltd.

I owe tremendous thanks to my wonderful six-year-old son, Nico, who
despite his age has been very patient and supporting in all my projects.
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Maja Kuna has been providing consultancy about technical writing, instructional design,
e-learning content development, and management to corporate and public organizations
for the last few years. She has consulted and worked for organizations in different verticals,
including: EUMETSAT, Societa' degli Studi di Settore (SOSE), GiuntiLabs, and Piramide
e-learning supporting various e-learning projects.
Maja is a certified Moodle teacher (MCCC, formerly MTC) and she has been involved
as an instructor in courses on Moodle in Almere (Netherlands), Florence (Italy), and
Darmstadt (Germany).
Maja holds a Master of Art in Polish Philology with specialization in teaching (Jagiellonian
University in Cracow) and a postgraduate diploma in E-learning and Knowledge Management
(University of Florence). She speaks English, Italian, and Polish fluently.
Kent Villard is a twenty-year veteran of the IT industry and currently the E-Learning
Coordinator for the University of Prince Edward Island. He has been administering Moodle
for almost five years. He has acted as a technical reviewer for Packt on Moodle 1.9 for Design
and Technology and Moodle 1.9 Teaching Techniques among other titles.
When not administering Moodle or evangelizing the Mac platform, Kent can be found
spending quality time with his beautiful wife Denise and awesome kids, Maxwell and
Samantha, and watching really bad movies.
Kent lives in Cornwall, Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada. He can be reached
at [email protected].
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